Crypto buy the dip calculator with backtest
Model staged crypto buys on price dips with a dip threshold, trading fees, and a 364-day real Bitcoin price backtest cross-checked across two exchanges.
A buy the dip plan keeps cash idle until prices fall. Every tranche waits for a drop below the running high. This page backtests the idea on a year of real Bitcoin prices.
No market feed is used. Every price, rate, fee, and balance comes from the values you enter or the fixed backtest dataset.
Your inputs
Inputs and results stay in this browser. Values are capped to keep calculations finite and responsive.
Calculated result
- Cash deployed in dips
- $0.00
- Cash deployed at end
- $10,000.00
- Units accumulated
- 0.1246875
- Average cost
- $80,200.50
- Ending value
- $9,975.00
- ROI
- -0.25%
0% of the 4 tranches bought on drawdowns
No dip crossed the threshold, so all cash buys at the end
Cash invested divided by units received
At a final price of $80,000.00
Gain of -$25.00 on $10,000.00 invested
The calculation
What a dip trigger waits for
A buy the dip plan holds cash until price falls a set distance below the highest price seen so far. That running high is the local peak, not a market forecast. The trigger fires only when the drop crosses the threshold you enter.
Each tranche is a fixed slice of the total cash. When a dip crosses the threshold, one slice converts to the asset. If the threshold is never met again, the unused slices deploy at the final price of the window.
Why waiting is not always better
Cash sitting idle earns nothing while it waits. If price keeps climbing, the later tranches buy fewer units than a single earlier purchase. That is the cost of patience, and this page shows it in dollars against a lump sum.
Dips are only identified in hindsight on real data. A live market gives no advance signal that a fall has finished. The model assumes the trigger price is available, which real order books may not deliver instantly.
What the backtest adds
Dollar amounts in the backtest are fixed at $10,000 with four tranches and a 15% trigger at a 0.25% fee. Change the parameters to test a tighter trigger or more tranches against the same real prices.
How a dip plan spends its cash
Say you set $10,000 of cash across 4 tranches with a 15% dip trigger. Each tranche is $2,500. When Bitcoin drops at least 15% below its recent high, one tranche buys. Cash that never meets the trigger deploys at the end. The model uses real daily prices, so the dates and dollars are concrete.
Questions and answers
Does this calculator predict the next Bitcoin dip?
No. The synthetic path and the real backtest both assume prices that are already known. The trigger tells you when a modeled drop crosses a threshold, not when a real market will fall.
What happens if no dip crosses the threshold?
Every unused tranche deploys at the final price of the window. You still put all of the entered cash to work, just later and at whatever the final price happens to be.
Is cash idle really free?
In this model idle cash earns no yield and pays no penalty. Real cash can sit in a wallet, earn interest, or be eaten by inflation. None of that is included here.
Where does the backtest data come from?
The backtest below uses 364 published daily Bitcoin prices from CoinGecko, cross-checked against Kraken at a 1% tolerance, fetched on the date stated in the data disclosure.
Method and sources
The formulas run only on your inputs and the fixed backtest dataset. These references support the definitions and risk notes on this page. They do not supply prices or predict a result.
- Investor.gov dollar-cost averaging glossary
Defines equal purchases at regular intervals and explains why a fixed amount buys more units at lower prices, the same logic a dip trigger relies on.
- SEC bulletin on investment fees
Explains that transaction fees reduce the money left in an investment and should be checked against account records before execution.
Related calculators
Backtest of a 15% dip plan on a year of Bitcoin
The calculator above runs on a synthetic path. Real markets do not move that way. So below, the same dip rules run against 364 dated daily Bitcoin prices, $10,000 in four tranches with a 15% trigger and a 0.25% fee.
Cash deployed in dips
$10,000
4 of 4 tranches on 100% of the cash
Cash deployed at end
$0.00
No leftover cash after the dips
Ending value
$7,432
0.0973729 units, -25.7% ROI, peak $124,740
Average cost
$102,698
against a final price of $76,325
Lump sum baseline
$6,498
-35% ROI on the same $10,000
Dip minus lump sum
$934
Dip plan led on this window
Dip plan versus lump sum on the same cash
Over the September 19, 2025 to September 18, 2026 window at a 0.3% fee, the dip plan deployed 4 of 4 tranches during dips and ended $7,432. A lump sum of the same cash ended $6,498. On this history dip buying came out $934 ahead. One path, not a prediction.
Data disclosure
- Primary price source CoinGecko daily USD closes, window 2025-09-19 to 2026-09-18.
- Cross-checked against Kraken XBTUSD daily opens at a 1% tolerance, with 364 of 364 readings matched.
- Data fetched on 2026-09-18 and not updated automatically by this page.
- One reading was dropped because CoinGecko and Kraken disagreed by 3.71%.
- Dips are only recognizable in hindsight and this backtest is not a forecast.
Research and risk disclosure
A model for thinking, not investment advice. Past prices do not guarantee future results. Fees, slippage, and timing gaps are simplified. Buy the dip plans can wait a long time for a trigger and still lose money in a falling market. Buy the dip plans can wait a long time for a trigger and can still lose money if the market falls further after each purchase.
Built and checked by Michael Lip